From what I know, Floyd Mayweather does not answer to anyone. Floyd does not answer to his business partners, to Manny Pacquiao, Top Rank, Golden Boy, or Showtime.

Floyd Mayweather is his own boss. Remember?

Since when did Floyd Mayweather need a poll from the fans to tell him what to do? Maybe the 37 year-old had an overnight change of heart. Maybe he doesn’t care about the money he will generate by accepting a fight with Amir Khan, which most of the boxing world has already expected to happen since November.)

Say what you will about Amir Khan. Love him or hate him. Say he deserves a shot at King Floyd or say he has no chance. But one thing is for sure, Amir Khan is an international boxing star, make no mistake about it.

Maybe Khan is not the biggest star in the United States. Maybe he’ll lose to Mayweather in a one-sided fight. I don’t know what will happen. Khan has lost fights. And he has speed, foot work, and natural skill that is extremely effective. We’ve seen him outbox some of the world’s best fighters. Freddie Roach claims that Khan beats Mayweather.

We can go back and forth about the outcome of Mayweather/Khan or Mayweather/Maidana all day. That is the beauty of boxing. And no disrespect to Marcos Maidana or his fans–he is one of my favorite fighters–but no one was calling for a Mayweather/Maidana fight until Maidana beat Adrien Broner. And Maidana and Broner combined do not have more fans than Khan.

Floyd knows Khan’s impact. And boxing is a business. We are in the fight business, my friends, the fight business. Fans choice has little to do with the boxing decisions made to benefit the boxing business. If our opinions made a difference to Mayweather, the businessman, he would have fought Manny Pacquiao ten times by now.

Most intriguingly for Mayweather is that Khan is the most popular fighter in the UK. Khan is probably “known” more than Mayweather in other parts of the world outside of the US. Imagine an international press tour that sends Mayweather/Khan to Pakistan, England, Dubai and other exotic countries. Khan has that kind of universal pull from the public. Just follow Khan’s Instagram or Twitter accounts to see where he goes.

Are we supposed to expect Floyd to take a Maidana fight because hardcore fight fans submit a vote on a public poll? That’s a risky financial choice for Mayweather, who likes to gamble his money on football, not boxing.

Boxing needs anything that allows mainstream sports fans to interact. Look, I get it. And Mayweather is a marketing genius. OK. Just don’t treat me like a fool.

On Super Bowl Sunday Floyd Mayweather announced that he will have the fans decide his next opponent. Mayweather created a poll on his website, Mayweatherpromotions.com, to allow fans to vote their choice between Khan and Maidana. On February 5th Fightnews.com reported that Marcos Maidana was winning the poll by a wide margin. The website said Maidana was winning 79% of the vote. On February 6th, Yahoo Sports reported that Maidana only had 51% of the votes. The website has roughly 20,000 votes as of this writing, and an overnight change of nearly 30% sounds a little strange. So I did some independent research on the poll and looked to see how it benefits Floyd Mayweather outside of boxing. The poll is generated by Lockerdome.com. Their slogan is “Collect Anything.” Before a voter submits a pick on Mayweather’s website they must sign into their Facebook or Twitter account and authorize Lockerdome.com to update their personal profile, post tweets, and see who they follow and who follows them. Mayweather and Lockerdome.com will have access to every users’ likes and dislikes. Facebook does the same thing. When you “Like” something on Facebook they know to target you. If you are a football fan and have liked your favorite team’s fan page don’t be surprised to see ads that target your interests.

This is the future of marketing. By doing this future opponent poll, Floyd is building a database of super fans. Now he can create content and merchandising for engaged followers because he knows their interests and curiosities. It’s genius. It’s smart business. Floyd is changing the game once again. But I’m not falling for it. Don’t waste my time. I have enough of my personal information on the Internet.

COMMENTS

Not one comment from anyone all day about anything? Thats just plain odd.

-Carmine Cas :

Lol Floyd is just trying to distract everyone from the fact that he lost 10 big ones because of Seattle's physical play.

-amayseng :

Not one comment from anyone all day about anything? Thats just plain odd.

I know right, I thought the same thing yesterday when I logged on a very few three times. Maybe the polar vortex is freezing all of our minds....

-amayseng :

Either way they better come up with another loaded card if they want some good sales for 75$.

-deepwater2 :

Not one comment from anyone all day about anything? Thats just plain odd.

It's really hard talking about mayweather these days. It's like seeing the same guy at the diner every morning. Blah blah blah yada yada yada. Mayweather defers to al Haymon sometimes other times he says he makes all decisions. Either way the joke fight of Zimmerman dmx gets more worldwide attention. It is a joke and the populace should not even really know who Zimmerman is.

-The Shadow :

Lol Floyd is just trying to distract everyone from the fact that he lost 10 big ones because of Seattle's physical play.

He didn't, CC...

-The Shadow :

On Super Bowl Sunday Floyd Mayweather announced that he will have the fans decide his next opponent. Mayweather created a poll on his website, Mayweatherpromotions.com, to allow fans to vote their choice between Khan and Maidana. On February 5th Fightnews.com reported that Marcos Maidana was winning the poll by a wide margin. The website said Maidana was winning 79% of the vote. On February 6th, Yahoo Sports reported that Maidana only had 51% of the votes. The website has roughly 20,000 votes as of this writing, and an overnight change of nearly 30% sounds a little strange. So I did some independent research on the poll and looked to see how it benefits Floyd Mayweather outside of boxing. The poll is generated by Lockerdome.com. Their slogan is “Collect Anything.” Before a voter submits a pick on Mayweather’s website they must sign into their Facebook or Twitter account and authorize Lockerdome.com to update their personal profile, post tweets, and see who they follow and who follows them. Mayweather and Lockerdome.com will have access to every users' likes and dislikes. Facebook does the same thing. When you “Like” something on Facebook they know to target you. If you are a football fan and have liked your favorite team's fan page don’t be surprised to see ads that target your interests.
This is the future of marketing. By doing this future opponent poll, Floyd is building a database of super fans. Now he can create content and merchandising for engaged followers because he knows their interests and curiosities. It’s genius. It’s smart business. Floyd is changing the game once again. But I’m not falling for it. Don’t waste my time. I have enough of my personal information on the Internet.

I was with you until this. This. Ugh.
Ugh.....
The 30% increase has a very simple explanation. Khan started promoting it to his followers, most of whom are outside the Americas.
This explains why Maidana's votes go up while the UK and Middle East are asleep. And vice versa.
The idea of collecting data? Yes, you're right. To think it has anything to do with Floyd collecting data, I don't think that has much validity.
They sell that info to marketers. Floyd's not selling them anything so it has no benefit to him. Unless they cut a deal of some sort. Yet, that deal would be so insignificant due to the small number of voters. #AwfulThesis
People should be more worried about Facebook. Or simple news sites who collect information about you -- which they then use to sell to marketers.
(They're just now starting to require the disclosure of this. Before, they just collected it. The idea of going through your Facebook and Twitter to collect data is hardly new. Just go on your own Facebook and Twitter and see for yourself how many apps you have activated.)
Floyd's REAL benefit lies in the fact that he's now generating traffic for his site, getting people to talk about it, getting people involved, while also getting some basic market research data.
In fact, it's generating so much attention and traffic that ESPN.com decided to piggy back like some true leeches by starting their own poll, which doesn't matter one bit. ESPN is an American medium.
That means their results are grossly misleading, as you can see.
Anyway, the poll format is an interesting one. I think we will start seeing it more in his upcoming bouts.

-The Shadow :

Not one comment from anyone all day about anything? Thats just plain odd.

Found that odd, too. Not even anything from Radam G.
You've been mighty inactive lately, too, Roast! What's up with that???

-jzzy :

We're all getting tired of Floyd, mercifully in about a year from now he'll be irrelevant as his
clock winds down. He may actually have a lot of trouble with Khan's speed in May 2014, Floyd's
almost 37.

-SouthPawFlo :

Actually I was gonna comment, but I just kept it to myself...
Floyd is leaps and bounds so far ahead of fighters in the "outside the ring" area, he continues to do things that other fighters don't do...
I was talking to someone about boxing and Andre Ward's name came up, and the guy said "you talking about the guy who fought Dawson a few years back?"
I was stuck, because Floyd being the number 1 P4P in the world is 100x bigger in popularity that the #2 (Andre Ward)
I think Floyd and he people are focused on making the "Biggest events" and sometimes those are necessarily the "best fights."

-michigan400 :

This sham of a poll is just plain disrespectful to the boxing fans IMO. How can this be "letting the fans decide" when the fans choice is not even an option. It's like a poorly executed managerial technique to let his employees "feel" important and in control.

-leon30001 :

But one thing is for sure, Amir Khan is an international boxing star, make no mistake about it.

You're dead wrong that Khan is an international star. He is about as popular in England as the ebola virus. Where else do you think all the pay-per-view revenue befitting such a star will come from if not the UK and the US? He is nowhere NEAR the draw you think he is, trust me.
Having said that, some people in England might pay to watch him get beat. That could happen. but compared to Hatton, for example, Khan's fan base - of people who will actually part with their cash to support him - is negligible.

-leon30001 :

If our opinions made a difference to Mayweather, the businessman, he would have fought Manny Pacquiao ten times by now.

So you're saying here that Floyd the businessman ignored the fans re the Pacquiao fight because he is all about the business. But...if he cares so much about the business, he'd have fought Manny for that reason too! Yeah you're right, boxing is a business; and Pacquiao-Mayweather would be the biggest business in boxing history. So something's up with your logic there.
Also, if it's all business, then why fight Guerrero? Where's his fan base? From a business persepctive, fighting Manny makes ten times as much sense as fighting Robert.

-SouthPawFlo :

I didn't wanna sound like a Khan Hater, but I remember the Ricky Hatton/Floyd fight and Hattons fans were going crazy, they actually were still singing after Ricky got KO'd, and I just don't see fans riding for Khan like that....
I think Khan is more Popular than Chino, but an international Superstar, IDK if he's that big a celebrity...

-brownsugar :

[SIZE=3][FONT=arial]"You don't have to be boxing's version of a sooth-sayer to know that everybody wants to see the Maidana fight (given the limited choice). So I'm surprised and a little confused by all these guys on facebook screaming out for Khan.
Personally I think the whole Poll business is bogus... Possibly an elaborate scheme to get a positive spin out of Floyds choice to fight Khan.
Last time I checked neither Broner (who has a rematch clause), Schaefer, of Mayweather had anything substantial to say...
If they blow it, (by picking the wrong guy), Floyds going to have to get on that 100 foot tightrope, without a net.
he'll have to fight King-Kong (Thurman, Lara, or GGG) next time to bring the viewers back to PPV. "

-brownsugar :

Speaking of Lara and GGG, there's a story on BS about Lara's supposedly asking for GGG, Lara's Manager DeCubas says there shouldn't be a hard time clearing it with Al (The Shadow) Haman to do the fight on HBO... but are the rewards worth GGG going down to 154?,.. Or will Lara have to move up to 160? These conundrums and more vex my mind as we await the outcome of this unexpected challenge.
[SIZE=3]"I say right now that Lara has no chance at 160, he will be caught hard enough to end the fight.
but at 154, the odds become much more favorable to Lara."

-The Shadow :

Speaking of Lara and GGG, there's a story on BS about Lara's supposedly asking for GGG, Lara's Manager DeCubas says there shouldn't be a hard time clearing it with Al (The Shadow) Haman to do the fight on HBO... but are the rewards worth GGG going down to 154?,.. Or will Lara have to move up to 160? These conundrums and more vex my mind as we await the outcome of this unexpected challenge.
[SIZE=3]"I say right now that Lara has no chance at 160, he will be caught hard enough to end the fight.
but at 154, the odds become much more favorable to Lara."

Lara's a big '54. He turned pro at middleweight. Although he claims he can make '47 and would do so for Floyd. But according to himself, he would go to 160 to give GGG the #CubanClinic as he calls it.
His Twitter is hilarious, btw. So is Maidana's.

-The Shadow :

To be honest, it looks like Lara's using that dirty trick the other guys do by attaching themselves to a guy's name where they know it's impossible for them to fight, under the current circumstances.
GGG's doing it too, Pacquiao does it, they all do it. But they pretty much know that Lara won't see airtime on HBO and GGG ain't allowed to show on SHO.
HOWEVER, if he's sincere, which he very well may be, then I hope they can make this fight. I would favor GGG though, based on what I saw vs. Angulo.
I actually think Lara has the style to bother Andre Ward. They got a similar tight defense on the inside. If he can avoid getting bullied, he can box with Ward.

-amayseng :

Lara gets plastered by GGG.
Angulo who has slower feet than Canelo was getting to Lara all day and night.
GGG would beat the brakes off of Lara.